Amy Thomas Brings You All Things Holmes

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23rdSixties...because the 23rd century was so much like the 1960's, Baby.
Until 2011, I had seen half an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Star Trek," the movie from 2009. Armed with that incredible arsenal of trekkie knowledge, I decided to jump headfirst into the world of TOS, the original Star Trek series that began in 1966. This blog is my homage to that experience. Will I be an expendable redshirt, or an enduring blue or yellowshirt? Will I disappear randomly like Yoeman Janice or press bravely forward like Mr. Sulu? Only time will tell.

We’re entering the holiday home stretch, but if you’re still looking for gifts or stocking stuffers for the Holmesians in your life–or maybe for how to spend those giftcards coming your way–we have a few suggestions. Christmas delivery is still in sight, and books can be gifted electronically, so don’t despair. No Holmes enthusiast needs to be disappointed this holiday season!

Books with Baker Street Babes flair:

Available here, Femme Friday is the latest release by the Baker Street Babes and friends and is an essay tribute to the women of the Sherlock Holmes Canon and adaptations. Penned by women of all ages and all walks of life, it’s an analytical, insightful celebration of women by women.

Available here and now in several volumes including a Christmas anthology, the MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories is perfect for the Doyle Canon lover who wants to dive into a host of new short story pastiches that adhere to a traditional interpretation. The Baker Street Babes are responsible for several stories across the series and are proud to be part of contributing all series royalties to Undershaw and the school for special needs children that resides there.

Available here, Lyndsay Faye’s latest release collects her greatest Holmesian short stories from the Strand Magazine and unites them with new tales filled with adventure, wit, and heart. Described by several reviewers as the best pastiche collection published in many years, Lyndsay’s stories will delight readers of all ages, stripes, and points of entry into the Sherlockian world.

Available here. So good she had to be listed twice, Lyndsay Faye’s novel-length pastiche connecting Sherlock Holmes with the Jack the Ripper investigation is a modern classic of the genre and a must-read for fans of Victorian Holmes.

Available here. Traditionally nontraditional, The Detective and The Woman (and subsequent books Winking Tree and Silent Hive) feature a mystery-solving partnership between Sherlock Holmes and a strongly-realized Irene Adler as they confront threats that take them to Florida, the Sussex Downs, and the London streets.

For Film and Television Lovers:

Available here. Relive the glory days of the first seasons of Sherlock with deluxe DVD and Blu-Ray sets that will delight the fans of Cumberbatch and Freeman, as well as the tightly-plotted web woven by Andrew Scott’s Moriarty.

Available here and considered by many to be the definitive Sherlock Holmes adaptation for all time, fans of the mesmerizing performance of Jeremy Brett will be delighted by this collection that contains every episode of this iconic series.

Available here. Witty and idiosyncratic, Elementary continues to delight television audiences and gain new fans with its ultramodern take on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. (Joan) Watson. Recent fans may not have had a chance to catch the first few seasons and will enjoy delving into hours of mystery-solving fun, including the mindbending and memorable guest role of Natalie Dormer.

Available here. Without Rathbone and Bruce, the history of Holmes on screen is incomplete. Relive the thrilling classic films that saw Holmes fighting Nazis and proving himself as a man of action long before Guy Ritchie came along.

Lovely Little Things:

Available here. Ali Miller’s beautiful tea set is not only a delightful object in its own right, but is also featured, along with other Ali Miller designs, in the BBC’s Sherlock. The Home Sweet Home set pictured here is seen in the iconic Baker Street tea drinking scene when Moriarty visits Holmes at 221b Baker Street.

Available here. Lovarzi’s delightful and stylish winter collection of Sherlockian hats and scarves will turn heads for years to come.

This piece was originally written for the Baker Street Babes and can be found on their website here.

To a great mind, nothing is little.

—-Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet

130 years ago today, Beeton’s Christmas Annual took a chance on a story by new author, a doctor in his twenties who happened to be named Arthur Conan Doyle. A Study in Scarlet is a peculiar tale by modern standards, with its separated sections and unfortunate depictions of Mormonism. Even at the time, it didn’t create much of a splash at initial publication.

But there’s something about it.

It’s just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together

—-Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet

There’s something about the youngest, sharpest incarnations of two people meeting for the first time. It’s impossible now to read the story without knowing the context of what is to come, but I believe that if you could, it would still have the power to whet your appetite and make you crave more of the interactions between Holmes and Watson, as the doctor takes you on the roller coaster journey of trying to understand his new flatmate.

It was easier to know it than to explain why I know it.

—-Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet

There’s also something about the detection, the “attainable superpower,” as Benedict Cumberbatch once described it. Holmes is always ahead, but he’s not superhuman. This youngest, sharpest Holmes does what all of us do, but he does it better and more, and he makes us realize, or at least imagine, what it would be like to understand the world around us to a far fuller extent.

There is a mystery about this which stimulates the imagination; where there is no imagination, there is no horror.

—-Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet

A Study in Scarlet is filled with the sense of adventure and razor-edge plotting that would come to characterize Doyle’s short stories. His ability to craft suspense, while perhaps not yet at its height, is certainly evident in the story’s most thrilling moments. Another Holmesian through-line is the question of vigilante versus traditional justice, the question of whether horrendous acts can be justified. The very young Doyle crafted an engaging mystery; but, characteristically, he couldn’t resist including the kind of moral dilemma that would pepper the pages of many of his greatest stories.

There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.

—-Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet

Except it hadn’t been done before. Though few realized it at the time, when A Study in Scarlet burst onto the scene, it ushered in an era in which the world would be captivated by a detective who could be moody and kind, genius and ignorant, contemplative and frenetic. The Era of Holmes and Watson, when two men with disparate habits and personalities would forge one of the most engaging partnerships in literary history, came with more of a whimper than a bang.

I think that’s part of what makes today wonderful. I wish I could travel in time to tell Doyle that his manuscript isn’t going to linger in oblivion. Jokes related to his feelings about Holmes aside, I wish I could show him that the era he created would never end. Instead, I want to tell him, it will endure through changing tastes and mores, somehow remaining relevant and poignant no matter how much time elapses.

Happy 130 years to a story that started as nothing–and changed the world.

Today is a happy day, for it marks the launch of Femme Friday, a book a long time in the making that contains thirty-three essays by female authors who analyze, dissect, and celebrate female characters found in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes stories, as well as transformative works and adaptations like BBC Sherlock, Elementary, and The Great Mouse Detective.

Femme Friday began as a Baker Street Babes Tumblr project, a way to draw attention to the female characters of the Sherlock Holmes world who are often overlooked and underappreciated. Once a week, we took turns selecting ladies and writing about them in our own styles and with our own emphases. I not only learned more about the characters; I also learned more about my fellow Babes as I read their astonishingly clever but also heartfelt tributes to these captivating heroines, villains, and everything in between.

But Femme Friday intertwines with my fandom journey even further back, back to the earliest days when I was finding my voice as a feminist Sherlockian. When you read the book, you will find that several of my contributions are about the women of BBC Sherlock, and some of those essays, in their original forms, date back to Season 1 of the series and to a website called The Baker Street Supper Club, which is now no longer operational. That site was my first real foray into becoming a fandom contributor rather than just a spectator, and as I timidly offered to write character analyses, I had absolutely no idea that I was starting something that would carry me through seven years of engaged fandom life.

Through the Supper Club, I met and joined the original Baker Street Babes, so it felt strangely fitting when the original Femme Friday project called for an update of my Supper Club essays. Suddenly, my writing had a new audience and sparked new discussion, and along with my fellow BSBs, I realized that writing about female characters was more than just an exercise in analytical creativity. So much more.

It was about giving voice and perspective to Doyle’s overlooked women. It was, sometimes, about looking at despised characters and trying to understand them according to their own points of view. (I will never forget my initial surprise at the positive reaction to my Sally Donovan essay.) It was about recognizing female members of fandom and trying to offer something uniquely theirs. Really, it was about anything it needed to be about–for you, for me, and for anyone.

And that’s the bottom line. As we circle back, yet again, and my essays finally see the light of day in their final, pristine form, I’m proud. It’s not because I think they’re the best thing ever written, but when I read them, I see the growth in my confidence in the fandom perspective I have that is mine and mine alone. And through them, I hope to help others begin to discuss and formulate their own perspectives as well.

I believe the greatest honor we can give to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and to the creators of Sherlockian transformative works is to deem their work worthy of real, honest discussion. Whether praise, criticism, or a mixture, active fandom is about loving something enough to pick it apart piece by piece to find out where its heart lies. I didn’t really understand that when I wrote my first article for the Supper Club nearly seven years ago, but I understand it now. More than anything, I hope Femme Friday will be a jumping-off point for you, to think about the females of the Sherlockian world and what their lives, challenges, and outcomes say about the world of the past and where we are now. I’m honored to be one of your guides on that journey.

You can find the US versions here, and the European versions here. They are only very slightly different in format, and Lulu allowed for a title on the spine, whereas Blurb did not, but essentially they are the same. Within a couple of weeks, the book should also be available via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and e-book versions are on the way.

All proceeds of the sales are used to cover the maintainance costs of the Baker Street Babes website and podcast hosting sites.

2. Sherlock Holmes is human and must die. (Essentially a humanistic perspective)

3. Sherlock Holmes probably dies/died at some point, but I’m not going to pay attention to it. (Essentially a perspective that chooses to focus on certain points of Holmes’s life and ignore others)

Absolutely transcendent media exists for each perspective, as well as loads of duds. Neil Gaiman’s short story “The Case of Death and Honey” brilliantly illuminates the first, as does Laurie R. King’s ongoing conceit that Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell are living well on the Downs to this day. Mitch Cullin’s A Slight Trick of the Mind, as well as the adapted film Mr. Holmes, explore the second beautifully (as well as raising a provocative question: Does Holmes only become a truly complete character if he can die, or does his triumph over death at the Falls, plus his Purgatory during the Great Hiatus, complete him there and then?). Most pastiche and fanfiction falls into perspective three, where the question isn’t directly addressed, though Holmes’s narrative arc of death and resurrection in the Canon, in addition to the long timeline of the stories, means it comes up more often than with most characters.

I’m here to ask, not answer. My own perspective shifts depending on what I’m consuming. I love the idea of a mythic, immortal Holmes. I also love the idea of an all-too-frail Holmes who becomes a symbol of humanity (because isn’t all of life really one big mystery story? But that’s an idea for another day). Most often, I exist in the fuzziness of perspective three. What about you?

It’s often said that Poe invented the detective story, while Doyle’s Holmes Canon was responsible for immortalizing and popularizing it. However, I recently went to see Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost in the cinema, an excellent production by the Stratford Festival in Ontario, and my reintroduction to that play reminded me how much of what we would call detective work is in Shakespeare’s plays.

The character of Boyet acts as a detective on behalf of the Princess of France, ferreting out the plans of the King of Navarre and his nobles. In service to his own passions, Don Armado investigates and uncovers an affair between Costard and Jacquenetta. The princess and her ladies perform detailed analysis of the letters received by their suitors as part of the comedy’s elaborate wordplay, and their meticulousness is worthy of a Holmes brother.

This is just one of a number of Shakespeare plays that contain conspicuous elements that fall under the heading of detection, for where there’s a mystery to solve by the end of the play, there must be at least one character functioning as a detective to solve it. Some even use their skills for nefarious purposes, like Othello’s Iago, an excellent sleuth who uses what he deduces to destroy lives.

I’ve heard and read many theories about the enduring popularity of Holmes and detective stories, but Shakespeare is a reminder that the popularity of mystery and elements of detection did not arise out of a Victorian vacuum. They were around in popular media long before, and if Holmes is ever to be forgotten, they will no doubt continue after.

Life presents the adult human with constant mysteries to endure, some of which we can solve, others of which we will never be able to fully grasp. Mystery stories are comfortingly escapist because they present solvable problems and the characters with the necessary skills to solve them. Whether or not they’re called mysteries and detectives, several of Shakespeare’s plots serve this function. He wasn’t the first, and Doyle certainly isn’t the last, great author to interpret and make sense of life through the mystery lens. Detection is always found where mystery is found, which means the human race has never lacked detectives, regardless of what they were called.

I don’t think about it all that much, the intersection of my disability and my love of Sherlock Holmes. I’m a permanently-disabled person; my physical disability goes with me and is part of me, wherever I go and whatever I do. These days, I’m so used to the idea of Sherlock Holmes as a positive coping mechanism that I hardly even stop to think about the magic of it all any more–the magic of the way a fictional detective joined me on my journey one day, jumping into the landscape of my life and making himself at home.

I met Holmes as a preteen, but I truly fell in love with him as a character right in the middle of the period that I think of as my “Crohn’s Decade.” I was a distance-learning college student in my mid-20s, trying to make sense of an incurable disease and physical limitations my doctors couldn’t solve. In contrast, Sherlock Holmes was the ultimate solver. He might make mistakes on occasion, but for the vast majority of the 60 canonical stories, he’s at the top of his game. I could get lost in a story like “The Copper Beeches” and know that it was all going to come out right in the end. Holmes would figure it out. Even if no one could figure me out, I had a place to go where everything made sense.

Alongside my health issues came mental ones, exacerbated by the physical challenges I faced. I’m clinically obsessive-compulsive. I’ve had intermittent bouts of major depression, and I have an anxiety disorder. At times, along the way, I’ve felt like an alien trying to survive in a world where I don’t seem to fit, an outsider looking in. You know who else is an outsider? The world’s only consulting detective. Never once has Sherlock Holmes made me feel alienated; in fact, the celebration of Holmes’s uniqueness in the Doyle Canon, his difference from the norm, has helped me to look at my own personality with a gentler eye. I might never reach Watsonian or Lestrade-like levels of societal acceptability. I might never be able to conform to what is expected of me or reach the social normalcy I sometimes seek, but neither does Sherlock Holmes. He’s an iconoclastic, self-directed character, and he’s not always happy, either. He has good days and (very) bad days. The point is, he’s always uncompromisingly himself. His radical self-acceptance is an ongoing challenge in my quest to reach my own.

Finally, Holmes’s character arc of defeat and triumph has served as a highly personal inspiration for me through the darkest time in my life, my cancer fight that resulted in a permanent ileostomy and other challenging physical complications. As a Christian, I often look to the Bible, and Micah 7:8 makes me think of Holmes: “Do not rejoice against me, O my enemy, for though I fall, I will rise again!” To defeat his enemy, Holmes takes the classical journey to the underworld, dying to the life he once had, but ultimately emerging stronger and more victorious than he could have ever imagined. I love Doyle’s resurrection story “The Empty House” less for its character reunions, though they’re marvelous, and much more for the fact that Holmes re-emerges in a blaze of glory, solving a locked room mystery and taking down his remaining nemesis without, it seems, breaking much of a sweat. I’ve never confronted the likes of Moriarty at the Falls or Colonel Moran with an air gun, but I know what it is to confront my deepest fears and to emerge from the crucible of suffering with a greater determination and will to not only survive, but to transcend. Through Holmes I’m reminded that my Reichenbach is not the end; it’s only the beginning. Though I fall, like Holmes, I will rise again.

I don’t have much patience for those who dismiss fandom as a silly thing or a little thing, who fail to grasp that stories have power to change our lives and bring us hope. Even after years of frantic Holmesian cultural zeitgeist, I still constantly see people posing the question–why is Holmes so popular? Why do we still love him so very much? I can’t answer that for everyone, just myself. He started out as an imaginary friend in my childhood, but later he became an integral part of understanding and coping with my personal disability, helping me to process and accept the daily challenges that shape my life and my identity. He’s a man who solves what can’t be solved, but at the same time is never quite solved himself. He’s a hero who transcends death, and he does it without ever being the stereotypical shining knight on a white steed. He’s a deeply imperfect man who accomplishes an uncommon thing.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling very courageous, I even aspire to follow in his footsteps

(This review was originally written for the Baker Street Babes and can be found on our site here.)

(This will be spoiler-free for major mysteries and plot points beyond the setup)

Mystery Queen (Queen of Mystery) is 2017’s newest contribution to the ongoing Sherlock Holmes zeitgeist. Produced by South Korea’s Public Broadcasting network (KBS, aired on KBS2), it’s far from being a rehash of familiar territory. Instead, it breaks new ground with a smile, a wink, and a refreshingly self-deprecating tone.

The opening episode wastes no time whatsoever in introducing the key players, beginning with an impressive action piece in which we see both the street smarts and physical prowess of our Watson (Wan-seung), played with rough charm by veteran star Kwon Sang-woo. Any fight that includes our hero breaking a clay flowerpot into a perp’s face is one I can get behind, and I particularly like the visceral quality of the action throughout the episode. This no pretty, choreographed martial arts-style combat. It’s about fists and survival.

In contrast, we’re subsequently introduced to our lady Sherlock (Seol-ok) through what appears to be a mundane instance in which a shopkeeper can’t figure out who is stealing from her, while the police refuse to take her seriously. In a sequence reminiscent of any number of Doyle’s Holmes stories, Seol-ok uses clues and security footage to put together a string of clever deductions that lead straight to the solution to the mystery. Played by Choi Kang-hee (one of my all-time favorite Korean actresses), this middle-aged, married female Holmes bears all the hallmarks of the character we love–she’s whip-smart, nonconformist, eccentric, and socially unusual. (Case in point: In oblivious Holmesian fashion, after solving this initial mystery, she asks the shopkeeper for a discount–apparently missing the ample social cues that indicate the woman is processing the personal emotional implications of what Seol-ok has just uncovered.)

Our third major player also comes into the picture during our convenience store case, the Inspector Lestrade character (Chief Hong), played by Lee Won-keun. The youngest Lestrade adaptation I’ve seen on screen to date, Chief Hong has an endearing younger-brother relationship with Seol-ok, whom he calls Seonsaengnim (a Korean title used for a respected mentor) . We are quickly shown that he’s risen to being precinct chief at an unusually young age, mostly because she’s been helping him solve difficult and perplexing cases for quite a while. Hong is no idiot, but he lacks Seol-ok’s speed of thought and ability to connect unusual clues. In this iteration, however, he’s humble enough to willingly look to the person who has the skills he lacks.

The episode’s central mystery, one with higher stakes that potentially sets up a series arc, is presented in a visually-engaging way by showing various characters’ different mental constructs of how the crime was committed. As clues are added and theories are refined, we see the changes reflected in these psychological reconstructions. Overused, this could be annoying, but in this episode, it’s relied upon sparingly and simply serves as a way to show rather than just telling, and it’s a welcome technique.

Mystery Queen is not a strictly procedural mystery show. The above is simply the setup, and as the story is fleshed out, it’s clear that we’ll be delving into the mysteries of our characters’ lives as much as the crimes they solve. Seol-ok is the wife of an absent prosecutor and daughter-in-law to his domineering, social-climbing mother. For years, she’s harbored a dream to become a police detective (and has the skills to pass the test) but has deferred her dream to further her husband’s career. Our closest equivalent to Mrs. Hudson is Seol-ok’s best friend, divorced chef Kyung-mi. Some of the episode’s strongest moments are between the two women, who have painfully honest conversations about love, marriage, and divorce. Their friendship, and the struggles they share, takes a charming series and provides it with emotional weight.

I’ve covered quite a bit of ground, but I’d be remiss in not mentioning that the series contains a hefty dose of comedy. It’s not a constant slapstick-fest, and it has plenty of dramatic moments, but the overall tone is light. I find that particularly refreshing after the slew of extremely serious and self-important Holmes adaptations that have come out in recent years. I love larger-than-life, superhero Holmes. I also love a Holmes who’s just trying her level best to keep her nosy relatives from finding out that she’s a super sleuth on the side. An added dollop of elderly ladies who lunch and do their own version of detective work is particularly hilarious.

Culturally speaking, Mystery Queen contains enough recognizable nods to Doyle’s Holmes that even viewers who are not aficionados of KDrama should be able to enjoy it and make it through some unfamiliar cultural territory. Thus far, the most jarring aspect for viewers from more individualistically-inclined cultures, I think, will be Seol-ok’s home situation. Simply, going into it with the understanding that in-laws are treated like immediate family and that social structure dictates a high level of respect for and obedience to family and societal elders would be helpful.

I’m pleasantly surprised by Mystery Queen. It’s funny, it’s quirky, it’s intelligent, and it re-adapts characters I know and love in familiar but fresh ways. Even more than that, as a feminist, I’m delighted to finally find a series that introduces a female Holmes with a realistic life. She’s brilliant, and she’s odd. As many brilliant and unusual women have found, society doesn’t usually reward those who choose to walk a different path. It would have been easy to give Seol-ok an easier life, to make her single, fabulously wealthy, and able to do whatever she wants. Instead, the writers of Mystery Queen have given us a far more complex gift, a woman with the mind of Sherlock Holmes and a life that looks a whole lot like that of many women around the world. Seol-ok is no superhero. She’s a real-life woman trying to juggle her talents and society’s expectations, and sometimes that’s even better.

Mystery Queen (Queen of Mystery) airs on KBS2 on Wednesday and Thursday nights at 10:00p.m. and will run for 16 episodes (barring an extension, which would be announced later).